272 NATURAL SCIENCE. April, 



certainly the case that a few poets, painters, and writers are insane. 

 But it is equally the case that a number of potmen, ploughmen, and 

 artisans become insane. The eccentricities and insanities of the 

 unknown come under the notice of the parish authorities and the 

 county councils ; the eccentricities and the insanities of genius are 

 betrayed to all the world. To say that Ruskin, Tolstoi, Ibsen, Zola, 

 and so forth, are degenerates, and to support it by random citations 

 and bitter invectives, is to elaborate an ill-natured and stupid paradox. 

 If Max Nordau wished to convince people, indeed, if he himself 

 believed in his own view, he would have dismissed rancour from his 

 pages, and developed his theory in a calm and scientific spirit. 



Physiology in the Garden. 



A Popular Treatise on the Physiology of Plants, for the Use of 

 Gardeners, or for Students of Horticulture and of Agriculture. 

 By Dr. Paul Sorauer. Translated by F. E. Weiss, B.Sc. 8vo. Pp. x., 256, 

 with 33 illustrations. London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1895. Price 9s. nett. 



Dr. Sorauer's "Popular Plant Physiology for Gardeners" has 

 been in use for four years, and its excellence for its purpose needs no 

 comment. It is an admirable treatise on plant physiology, illustrated by 

 and applied to the common practices of horticulture, and without doubt 

 a book worth translating ; but Professor Weiss's translation, though 

 in certain respects a useful piece of work, if only for bringing Sorauer 

 within the reach of a greater number of students, does not always 

 compare favourably with the original. To begin with, it is seriously 

 handicapped by its high price, 9s. It is twice as thick as the German 

 publication, and the binding and general get-up are superior, but we 

 think that gardeners and the like for whom it is intended would have 

 preferred a humbler and cheaper volume. Again, the book is, or pro- 

 fesses to be, a translation, not a revised and enlarged edition, and 

 therefore it is unfair to make on the title-page (and in advertisements 

 of the book) an important addition to its professed scope. Sorauer 

 wrote purely for gardeners and horticultural students and throughout 

 keeps this aim in view ; it is not a book for agriculturists, and it is 

 unfair to a large class of would-be learners and students to introduce 

 agriculture on the title-page. Of course, the broad botanical principles 

 are the same for both branches, but beyond these the agriculturist will 

 find comparatively little in the way of help or suggestion. Again, a 

 man must be something more than a botanist to reproduce perfectly a 

 work which enters into the technicalities of horticultural operations, and 

 the want of this applied experimental acquaintance with the subject 

 is evident in comparing translation and original. The translator 

 would have done better had he stuck faithfully to his copy. In diverg- 

 ing from this he often obscures the sense or omits important details. 

 Look, for instance, at § 28, which describes the effect of different 

 methods of pruning. The paragraph in which is mentioned the forma- 

 tion of the woody excrescences known as burrs is omitted, and so is the 

 one that follows. In the next we read in the translation that " In the 

 case of cherries and stone-fruited trees ... the branches which have 

 once borne flowers will not do so again, but remain bare. The formation 

 of flowering buds, therefore, progresses gradually towards the ends of the 

 branches ; while in pears and apples fruiting spurs may bear flowers 

 year after year, the spurs increasing continually in thickness." Trans- 

 lated literally it runs thus : "Those parts of the branches of stone- 

 fruit-trees which have once borne fruits do not develop fruit buds 



